The Secret Book Society

The diary turns to April 1889. Clara becomes a widow when Silas dies. In London, she sees Elias with a family and runs away without speaking to him, assuming that he has found happiness elsewhere. Aware that the law gives husbands near-total control over their wives, Clara marries the mild-seeming elderly Earl of Duxbury, Edgar, believing he will allow her freedom and protection.

However, when Lady Meddleson tells Edgar about Clara’s past with Elias, Edgar grows jealous and locks Clara in her room for weeks. Clara feels she is back in a prison again. Meanwhile, Clara’s maid discovers that Lady Meddleson has a son outside of marriage. Clara resolves to wield this knowledge when it will be most effective.

After returning from Rosewood Cottage, Lavinia is summoned to her father’s study, where she learns that her father, Lord Eversville, has discovered her journals. He reads passages from them aloud and dismisses Lavinia’s emotions as “hysteria.”

Lord Eversville announces that he will send Lavinia to a psychiatric hospital, ignoring the protests of Lavinia’s mother. Lavinia runs to her room and locks the door in despair.

Rose returns home eager to tell Theodore she is pregnant, but her excitement dies down when she learns Byron is visiting. Rose meets Byron and Theodore in the drawing room and endures Byron’s insults as always. When Byron calls Theodore a disappointment, Rose reprimands her brother-in-law. Theodore intervenes and orders her to dine alone.

Later, Byron enters Rose’s bedroom uninvited and threatens to have her committed if she causes him social embarrassment. Shaken, Rose goes to the connecting door to reach Theodore but finds it locked.

The next afternoon, Eleanor visits Lady Meddleson. She confronts her with the knowledge of her son and demands an invitation for Rose. Lady Meddleson yields.

Eleanor leaves the house from the rear and finds Lady Duxbury’s footman unconscious. An attacker grabs Eleanor; Eleanor drives her hatpin into him, and he flees. She wipes the blade clean and reboards the carriage. Studying her steady reflection in the window, she resumes reading the diary.

In November 1893, Edgar dies. Clara finds Elias’s old shop and learns that a cholera outbreak took his family. She tracks him to a poor lodging, where he is dying of consumption, purchases the building to clear his debt, and nurses him.

Clara moves Elias to her estate in January 1894. He tells her that Lady Meddleson lied years ago to keep them apart. They mark Christmas together; he gives her a brooch containing his hair, and she gives him a photograph of George. Elias dies shortly after. Clara places George’s photograph in the brooch and vows to use her wealth to help others.

Eleanor returns home to find Cecil drunk and agitated. He calls her a terrible mother for having stayed away all night and hits her. Cecil has fired William’s nurse and canceled his trip to Peru so that he can keep watch over Eleanor. She is devastated at the loss of her long-awaited respite. Carrying a weeping William to the nursery, Eleanor decides she must flee Cecil. The nurse’s absence means she will have access to William before a replacement is hired, giving Eleanor a small window of opportunity. 

Eleanor confides her plans to Bennett. Bennett pledges her loyalty to Eleanor, gathers Eleanor’s clothes, and offers to sell Eleanor’s jewelry for funds.

Lavinia arrives distraught at Lady Duxbury’s place and tells the women about her father’s threats. Lady Duxbury gives her poetry books by male poets. She tells Lavinia that their poems are similar to hers, proving that she is merely writing in the poetic tradition. Rose gives the news that she has received an invitation to Lady Meddleson’s soiree.

Eleanor comes in next, leaning on Lady Duxbury’s butler Davies, with a dark bruise on her face. She tells the group that Cecil abused her physically and sent her to the meeting so that her friends could see his control over her. Eleanor plans to leave her husband that night. The sight of Eleanor’s injuries galvanizes the women into immediate action.

Lady Duxbury offers Eleanor a plan: Eleanor can sneak out of the house dressed in widow’s mourning, and Lady Duxbury’s carriage will take her and William to one of her holdings. Rose suggests that Eleanor can even move to America later, with the help of Rose’s father, to evade Cecil. 

Eleanor takes off a ring that Cecil recently gave her, its six gems forming an acrostic spelling CLARKE (Cecil’s surname). She leaves the ring on the table for Bennett to sell for travel funds. She then prompts Rose to share her own news, shifting the focus to solidarity.

Rose admits she has concealed her pregnancy because Byron threatened her with confinement. The women compare the ways men use that threat to control them. Eleanor explains how she secured the invitation through blackmail and mentions the alley attack and her hatpin defense.

Rose offers to move Eleanor’s luggage under the cover of her charity work. Noticing Eleanor’s scuffed shoes, Rose insists she take her rose-embroidered boots. They exchange farewells, and Eleanor departs wearing the boots.